


The Moment When

by GlowAmber



Series: Modern Tangled [3]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, Tangled (2010), Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Falling In Love, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 15:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16558727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowAmber/pseuds/GlowAmber
Summary: Everyone says it's the most important moment of your life, that without it? Life is meaningless. Cassandra doesn't think they're wrong, but she does think they overexaggerate.[Cassandra/Lance, Modern AU. Cassandra is demipansexual.]





	The Moment When

She’s not sure when it started. 

It could have been when he first gave her a ride home from school and flirted obnoxiously with her, and only stopped when her eyerolls and snorts gave way to a firm ‘no’ that he respected. Maybe it was when he saw her walking down the side of the road after a bad date and let her sit on the hood of his car while they talked about nothing and everything, just unravelling and unwinding. Hell, it could have been during the party where they announced she was finally clear and cured; she watched him actually cry for her victory and then dance like a loon with her brother to celebrate.

She knows when she realizes it, however. She knows the moment she recognizes the tightness in her chest, and the fluttering in her belly, the sudden dryness of her mouth and the way her palms feel clammy. People have told her again and again how it feels, but she’s never understood, never felt the same, not before.

It happens one night when there’s no one home and she’s come back to dark rooms and bitter feelings because it's another date gone wrong. Another person pushing for things she doesn’t want to give, and their Dad is at work and Eugene is… passed out somewhere from studying, probably. It’s not worth calling her dad at the station, nor waking Eugene up from exam slog, but...

Cassandra doesn’t want to be alone, right now. She’s upset and tired and fed up with wandering hands and demands, so she demands, just not from them. Instead, she calls him and he answers, groggy, tired, but awake enough that he agrees when she tells him to meet her at the park around the corner. She’s often snuck out there, when she was younger, when they were all younger, and he finds her on the swings with her eyes on the stars.

And he doesn’t say anything, but he sits on the swing next to hers and reaches out and she puts her hand in his, and she realizes it. He feels solid and real, and it’s like waking up from a dream. Like going from black and white to color. Her heart beats heavy in her ribcage as she looks over so fast she might give herself whiplash. She takes in this tired boy still in pajamas with sneakers half laced who gives her a concerned sleepy smile and her breath catches in her throat.

Somewhere in her, she thinks, ‘Oh Fuck.’

He’s the same as he’s always been, she knows that. She can trace every line of his face and she knows who he is, he’s not changed. Her perception of him, has, somewhere down the line. His eyes have always been that soft pretty dark shade of brown, and his face has always been this expressive and warm. And at the same time… When did his lips ever look that full and kissable and when did the gentle strength in his grip make her feel like this?

Eugene would be.. furious, she’s sure, Lance is his best friend. They all grew up together, bonded with one another in the way that only orphans can. They had each other, Rapunzel included. They knew the issues of childhood traumas and navigated together, built each other up and made connections that time only strengthened.

This is different. 

The bond she has with Eugene is that of siblings, they have each other’s back and will kill for one another. Came close, once. But the electric zip through her when she stares across at Lance, startled and squeezing his hand, this isn’t familial. She’s suddenly aware of just how attractive he is and how much she just… wants to sit here forever holding his hand. And that scares her, because she’s never wanted anything like this, before, never actually felt something like this.

She thought she was broken, for a long time, because people would tell her how much they loved her and she’d stare at them blankly. She didn’t know how to respond. Nothing they told her was how she felt. She liked her previous boyfriends and girlfriends, liked being around them, but they didn’t make her feel things. Honestly, she ditched them constantly just to be with her family or Rapunzel or Lance. They weren’t as important, and that crushed her partners-- she didn’t care about them like they cared about her.

They could wax poetics about her looks, her personality, but deep down, childish insults still left their barbs and rang true after a few dates. She was cold, she was cruel, her heart was made of ice, she was soulless. They all said it, and no one understood. She didn’t, either.

Cassandra had watched Rapunzel and Eugene spiral around each other, deeply in love, ridiculously and ludicrously so, and not understood it. They were happy, so she was happy for them, but even her crush on Rapunzel from when she was 12 had nothing on how besotted they acted. 

And she just felt more broken. 

It wasn’t like she needed love to fit in, to feel whole, but everyone outside the family acted like she did. It had gotten to her, burrowed deep under her skin because they spoke like it was the greatest thing in the world.

And she understood, now. Sort of. It was everything becoming a little bit more vibrant, a little bit more inviting, it was like going all day busy with your life and realizing, suddenly, you were starving because you hadn’t eaten. It didn’t change her world, it wasn’t life or death, but she felt a little bit… brighter as she held his hand.

She commited the moment to memory, filed it away with all the precious other ones like when she first called James ‘Dad’ and when she first decided she and Eugene were family. 

“You doing alright?” Lance asks her and she laughs, and she feels awkward for the first time, standing on uncertain ground. He probably thinks it's about the bad date, and she thinks about the bad date, too, about kisses she didn’t want and wandering hands. She knows he’ll think it's a rebound, that she’s looking for something to help forget, but she wets her lips the same-- And pulls back to the safety line before she dives into shallow waters and hurts herself.

“Yeah… Yeah, no, I’m fine.”

She can ask him, later, when the weight of a failed romance isn’t hanging right there and threatening this possible one. Cassandra can wait for a right moment, she’s waited so many moments, after all, to find where the ground isn’t spinning wildly beneath her and sudden revelations haven’t blown her mind. She can wait the days and weeks and months, if she must, to ask for a kiss. Just a kiss. 

He might say no, he has the right to say no… He has the right to his own feelings, and she knows well enough how unwanted touches makes the skin crawl, so if he says no? She will back off, politely, respectfully, like he did for her, and bury the butterflies until they are no more.

But she doesn’t really want to think about rejection, no, she’d rather think of a moment where he accepts and the kiss actually feels like something other than desperation and pleas. If holding his hand makes her feel this much more… awake, what will it be like when she seizes him by the collar and pulls him down, breath hot against his lips, and asks if she can kiss him?

Cassandra’s not sure when it started, this slow blooming warmth behind her ribs, but she knows exactly when she realized she was in love with Lance.


End file.
